In
the autumn of 2017 the ninth Preis der Nationalgalerie was awarded to
Agnieszka Polska (born 1985 in Lublin). The artist will now present a
new multi-channel video installation in a solo exhibition opening on
September 27, 2018 in the Historic Hall at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum
für Gegenwart – Berlin.

The Medea Insurrection. Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain

An escape into mythology? Not with her!
It is true that, prior to 1989, East German literary figures and
painters frequently fell back on scenes from the ancient world when
depicting their discontent with the regime. However, for the artists
presented here, all of whom rose to maturity behind the Iron Curtain,
mythology was not so much self-denial as a no-nonsense amplifier of
their desires and feelings of resentment. Their interpretations of
Medea, Cassandra or Penthesilea were pure punk. Women artists from East
Germany, flanked by others from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Romania, played with fire, committed provocative acts, protested and
experimented beneath the radar of the accepted media. They bared
themselves and their rage, rejecting both Socialist and bourgeois role
models. This double refusal meant that they were generally running
greater risks than their male counterparts. This combination of defiance
and energy still leaves its mark in their imagery today.

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